Episode 20

I returned to the manor.

“You are a blacksmith. I want to see whether your skill is genuine.”

I was in Lord Goral’s room.

“Yes, understood.”

“I grant you a blacksmith qualification and permission to do business within this town. Forge within your current capabilities and show me that you can sell it to the townspeople.”

“I understand.”

“However. Do not disclose anything like ‘Alicia’s husband’ or the like, understood?”

Lord Goral glared at me intently.

Indeed, using authority would probably make selling weapons easy.

But then it would be meaningless, I suppose.

“Understood. Then I’ll begin preparing products starting today.”

“Yes. Regarding Magic Ore, I can provide as much Irea Magic Ore as you need. For Magic Ore beyond that, you should provide it yourself eventually.”

“Understood.”

For general use, Irea Magic Ore is sufficient.

I bowed to Lord Goral and left the room.

From now on, it’s back to full-fledged work as a blacksmith.

For now, it’s meaningless unless I prepare products.

I don’t know about other countries, but in a shop here the longsword is still the thing people pick up first.

Because it has the most users. So I need to have longswords ready, but first I need quantity.

And how many longswords to make also matters.

Even if I put effort into making high-quality pieces, if they’re priced high people won’t pick them up.

My main customers will probably be adventurers. Adventurers have ranks. From S to F, with S being the highest.

However, there aren’t many high-rank adventurers. The most common are probably D and E-rank adventurers.

Ideally I should make longswords that those ranked at such a level won’t regret buying.

Maybe I should manufacture something similar to the standard longswords supplied to the knights.

To mass-produce longswords right away, I made molds with Earth magic and poured Magic Ore into them.

The molds made with Earth magic must be heat-resistant. Otherwise they’d collapse at this stage.

Then I added Water magic to the Earth magic to cool the temperature of the earth. That quickly cools the Magic Ore poured inside.

Then I pulled the longsword out. It was already taking the shape of a longsword.

After reheating and making fine adjustments, I shrouded the longsword in Wind magic. I polished the blade and, after confirming a double-edged longsword had been formed, I set about making the hilt.

This too was the common type used by the Knight Corps, so I made a hilt that would form a cross with the blade.

Next I made the peg. I used dried wood left in the room to craft the peg.

After fitting the blade and hilt together, I drove the peg I made earlier into the peg hole to secure them.

I first pushed it in by hand, then finished by driving the peg in with a mallet.

There are two methods of securing it—one is to screw it in from the pommel—but I preferred this way.

For now, a quickly-made knight longsword was completed. There hadn’t been many delivery requests recently, but at one time all the longswords had started to wear out at once and we had to remanufacture them en masse.

I was endlessly performing Enchantment, but back then even the people of the blacksmith division were busily working together, I think.

I grasped the hilt of the longsword and checked it. The sharpness was acceptable. At least, the longsword I made before was like that.

I prepared a sheath as a finishing touch. For this I used Earth magic on the earlier-made longsword to take a mold, then poured Magic Ore into it.

I sheathed the longsword in the finished scabbard. I tried drawing and sheathing it several times—no problem, it seems.

I applied Enchantment as a finishing touch and moved on to making the next longsword.